What Kind of Man
by Fain on Fire
Summary: Death reveals the colors of not only those who experience it but also those who are around it. Deep within a forest of giant trees some time before the fall of Shiganshina, two men and a hungry titan face just a few of life's questions. How do you "comfort" someone who is facing their own death? What defines a coward? And just what kind of men are they? M - Brief gore, lang. All OC


_Author's Note: This is a one shot story featuring nothing but original characters. (My apologies to those who were looking for some character pairings.) It's been rated M just to be safe as it contains brief moments of gore, language, and possibly disturbing images. I hope you enjoy and feel free to leave a review_

What Kind of Man

Sunlight peered through the foliage and splayed one little beam of light across their gripped hands, illuminating the contrast between dark and pale skin clearly. Amongst all the billions of leaves and all the acres of ground this beam had to filter through and land on it managed to perfectly illuminate their clasped hands. It was almost enough to make him feel like he was doing the right thing.

"Am I… a coward… Mark?" Jason asked. Mark turned his head down toward the bloody face he was crouched next to. Jason was laying on his back on the ground, his face and uniform stained with blood; Jason's right side of his torso had been torn partly open, leaving his ribcage and seizing lung visible for Mark to see. Mark looked over the teary eyed man as he debated that question.

Jason's breathing was starting to come a little hoarse, and he had to squeeze out his words between rasps and coughs when he spoke. "I… I mean… I let her die." Tears streamed down Jason's face as he pleaded with his eyes. "I… I just _sat_ there. All that training… and I couldn't even-" he leaned forward as he erupted into a fit of coughing that left more red on his shirt. All Mark could do was tighten his grip on the man's nearly crimson hand and gently hold his back until the coughing stopped. Mark racked his brain to think of something.

There was a brief pause as Jason lay there, contemplating, when more tears slowly traced their way down his blood-splotched cheeks. "Is… is that why this happened? Just something I deserve because… because I couldn't-"

That was when the words finally made their way into Mark's mind and allowed him to interrupt. "No… No, Jason," he tried to say reassuringly. "We- we all experience fear. We all freeze up sometimes. Especially when we first start."

Jason didn't seem entirely convinced, but the twisted wrinkles on his face seemed to be more from physical pain than disappointment. "Did… Did you freeze up?" he asked Mark curiously, "Your first two missions?"

Mark saw the hope in Jason's eyes, and he once again had to deliberate the answer. "Yes," he lied. "I um… You heard about Matthew?" Jason gave a slow and shaky nod. Mark paused for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. "It uh… It was my fault he died," he said, unable to look at Jason in the eyes for more than a moment at a time. "I saw him get grabbed, saw how he cried and thrashed against that titan's hand, saw how he screamed at it for another chance, how he leaned away from those red stained teeth… And I just," Mark closed his eyes and shook his head. "I couldn't save him." It was stretched just well enough to give Jason some comfort, he guessed. Mark couldn't keep the guilt out of his eyes as he turned to look at the hopeful dying man beside him.

Jason saw his guilt, his pain, and began to cry. His trembling chest shook with heavy sobs as he looked up towards the sky thinking he wasn't the only coward in the world. Mark rested his head against the back on Jason's hand and whispered through his own tears, "We all have our moments, Jason… But they don't make us cowards. It's, it's not human to _not_ feel fear." The dying man broke his cry with a bit of sarcastic laughter.

Jason choked out, "Th- that's part of what separates us from the titans, right?"

Mark gave his own despairing chuckle. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right, Jason." They both shared a bit of empty laughter that ended with Jason's coughing again. The poor man was beginning to noticeably shiver. Mark… Mark didn't know what to do. Jason didn't really feel cold to him, but… He shrugged off his jacket anyway and draped it over the man's chest. Jason managed to choke out a thank you. _Well_, Mark thought, _At least I don't have to look at that wound…_ Mark closed his eyes as he racked his brain again. Just how do you comfort a dying man? How do you make someone who is never going to see their family, their home, and their friends again- comfortable? He stared at one of the trees closest to them as if it would give him an answer. It was a moment or two after that when Jason spoke up again.

"I-It's just kinda… funny, I guess," he said in between his sobs as he looked up into the sky, "Because I promised. You know?" Mark slowly nodded his head in understanding as Jason continued. "I mean… I said… I _promised_…" his tears started anew, "to her… to them… that I'd get those _things_. That I'd come _back_." The jacket on Jason's chest shook as his chest heaved with bitter sobs and coughs. "Oh, God, Mark… What are they gonna… What are they-"

Mark, running out of ideas of what he could say or do, pulled Jason's head to his chest and held him as he rocked gently back and forth. "We all make that promise, Jason. We all do. It's nothing to regret or be ashamed of."

Jason still wasn't able to contain his wailing as he trembled in Mark's arms. "But… But I failed, right? I made that promise, knowing how likely it was for me to…" He bit down his lip in regret, "And I still said it, and now I… I … _Dammit_," his fists shook as he clenched them, "Dammit, Mark, I still didn't… and now what are they gonna…?"

"Hey, hey," Mark interrupted softly with his own stream of tears flowing down his cheeks again, "You weren't wrong for saying that, okay? You didn't fail." Mark was completely serious as he looked into Jason's eyes. "You tried. And you tried all you could. In the end, that's what counts, all right? We… we never know how things are going to turn out. All we can do is try our best. Right?"

Jason could only answer with more sobs as he buried his face into Mark's chest, and Mark spent a few long moments crying with him. No words were exchanged for a while; all Mark could pull himself together enough to do was hold Jason and occasionally wipe the blood off his face when he started coughing. They spent several moments like that- silent, gazing off into the cruel forest as Jason shivered. It was then that the earth began to shake just a bit.

Mark and Jason turned their heads to look up ahead of them to see where it came from. It was a rhythmic _boom_… _boom…_ that mimicked footsteps. Not but a few moments passed before it appeared from behind one of the trees over a hundred yards away. Large bulbous nose, eyes slanted downward at a largely unnatural angle, and crooked teeth that were a little too big for its own mouth – already crimson even – all sitting rather loosely-looking on top of a seven meter tall torso with a large over-hanging gut. It took shaky baby steps as if it were unsure of itself, swinging its short arms wide with each foot forward to be sure it kept its balanced and even paused for a moment between each step as if it were waiting to see if it would topple over or not.

It got about half way between the tree it emerged from and the next before it stopped to look lazily over the forest floor; the thing's head sort of rolled over toward the right as it looked right and slumped over left as it looked left as if it's head hadn't been attached with all the sinews it was supposed to have. But it took only a moment to lock virtually diagonal eyes with the sad pair and spread an extensively wide grin that showed them bits of meat and a leg that were caught between its teeth. The titan took a short, shaky step towards them.

Jason gave a long painful groan and looked to Mark desperately; Mark felt his heart sink into the soles of his feet. Jason began to panic. "M-m-Mark, I.-I don't want it to be like this. _Please_ tell me I don't have to die like this." _Boom._

"Jason, it's going to be okay, man, it's going to be okay. I-"

"Please tell me I don't have to do this. I know I'm going to die either way but" Jason had to speak rapidly between deep coughs, "I don't want to have to look inside the mouth of another of those things. I just can't."

_Boom._

"Jason you're not going to have to, alright? I promise you. I'm going to get you outta here, up into one of these trees and-"

_Boom._

Jason was starting to get frantic. "Mark, they've already gotten me once, I just CAN'T do it again, do you hear me?"

_Boom._

Mark gripped the left handle of his gear firmly and looked Jason in the eyes, "Jason you're not going to _have _to, all right? If you could just lean up, I'll grab you and-"

Jason interrupted as he looked at Mark's blade. "Couldn't you do it for me here, Mark?" _Boom._ He was starting to yell, "Just a quick swing, or a flick of the wrist and it'd be over right? It'll be all over in just-"

"_No_. Jason, I'm not doing that," they were talking over each other, "Okay? I'm not gonna do that. You're not going to have to-" _Boom, _a hundred yards away.

Jason now couldn't pull his wide eyes off of the grinning titan. "Mark, Mark, please, you _have _to. I'm not going to able to look that thing in the eyes when I die! I don't know how I'm going to be able to _do _that! I just can't!" _Boom._

"Jason! Jason, just listen to me, okay!? You're going to be fine! If you just get up and let me grab hold of you-!" _Boom._

"Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, _please_ you have to! You can't let it, Mark! You can't LET it!" Its grin widened a little. _Boom._

"JASON! I'm not going to let it! But you have to _listen _to me!"

It was about seventy five yards away now. _Boom._

Jason grasped Mark in a shaky embrace much like a child would his mother.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH! MAAAARK! YOU CAN'T LET IT GET TO ME MARK! YOU CAN'T LET IT-!"

Blood suddenly erupted from Jason's mouth and spewed all over Mark's face and uniform. He went limp in Mark's arms as he began to shake and seize violently. _Boom._ His eyes rolled into the back of his head as more blood began to spew and seep out of his mouth and drip down his cheeks and chin. Mark let the man easily down on his back and continued to grip his hand, unable to do anything but helplessly watch. _Boom._

The shaking and blood coughing kept up for several moments before Mark eventually had to close his eyes. He felt Jason jerk a few times, then slowly start to seize less and less over a few more moments before he finally became still. Mark slowly opened his eyes and hesitated before he dared to look upon Jason's face. He was dead. There was no denying that now. But what got to Mark was the man's face. Jason's eyes had rolled back to the front, his eyelids spread open wide, his blood-filled mouth agape, and his face contorted into painfully unnatural wrinkles of horror. Whether from the sight of the titan or from the sight of something in the great beyond he had passed into, Jason had died in absolute horror. Mark closed his eyes and let the man's hand slip to the ground. _Boom._

He knew the titan was there, that it was close, but after something like that he had to allow himself a moment to cry, to let the tears and grief flow out of his eyes and onto the ground. Mark spent a good few moments with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands crying as the titan loomed ever closer. _Boom… Boom... BOOM…_

"You done yet?" the voice shouted from across and above. Mark looked up at Harvin, perched safely on his tree limb; he hadn't said anything to Mark since they found Jason. A little time before hand, after their part of the mission went wrong and the last titan had fallen, Mark and Harvin had looked around calling out their teammates' names. A minute or two of this and Jason's trembling voice had been the only thing to answer. Harvin had shared his initial shock with Mark but had resigned to be "lookout" on the tree limb while Mark attempted to comfort Jason in his last moments. "That thing's almost on top of you," Harvin now called out again. Mark looked slowly to his left. It was about forty or thirty yards away and reaching for him with the most sickeningly toothy grin on its face. _Boom._

"Yeah," Mark yelled back as he slowly stood up, "Yeah, I see him…" Without taking his eyes off of the titan before him, Mark raised the handle of his right sword, angled his hip, and pulled the trigger. The hook landed with a trusty _thunk_, and Mark pulled the second trigger. He zipped safely up and away towards one of the trees behind him; the titan merely grinned as it watched one of its meals fly away. Mark put his feet behind him and landed firmly. Poor Jason… He looked over at the dead man and regretted he hadn't closed Jason's eyes before he zipped off.

Mark pondered as he wiped the blood off of his face with his cloak. Just what had that man seen before he died? Was it the titan and the fear of being eaten? Had Jason imagined the slime and heat inside the titan's mouth as daylight closed off behind him? Or was it what he saw in the shadows of the tunnel on his way to the light that scared him? Or was it both? Had Jason been trembling in fear as his consciousness faded in and out, as his vision switched between the approaching titan and whatever it was that lurked in the beyond? Mark didn't know the answer to that, and to be honest, he wasn't if he wanted to.

The titan widened its mouth greedily as it slipped Jason's limp body headfirst, his lightless eyes still wide and his bloody mouth still agape, into its maw. Mark looked away and attempted to ignore the sounds as he shot his second hook and swung over to Harvin. The grey haired man looked on in disgust at the titan's ravenous display. Mark walked up to him, his eyes still avoiding the creature down below. Harvin shook his head, "Well that's just bloody awful. He was a good man… I guess."

Mark gave him an evil sideways look, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Harvin looked at him from the corners of his eyes in a sarcastic way, "You saw him these last two missions; the man couldn't even bear to hear a titan's footsteps much less stand up to its face without pissing himself." He took out a flask and sipped a quick swig from it.

"He was afraid, Harv. Who wouldn't be?" The nickname was a term of spite, for Mark knew that Harvin hated it.

"Well, yeah, you're right. But hell, you don't see us standing in place shaking our tails between our legs, do you?"

"It was his second mission, Harvin," Mark implored, "You trying to tell me you didn't freeze up on your first or second mission?"

Harvin took another swig then put the flask away, "Oh well, yeah, sure. I did the first time I came face to face with one of those flesh grinders." He turned around to fully face Mark, "But it only took seeing one chomp taken out of my closest friend to get my balls back."

There was an odd silence for a moment.

"It doesn't take seeing a family's loved one die a thousand times for me to understand the stakes. I'm not the brightest lamp of the bunch but I'm not that stupid."

Mark scoffed and tightened his grip on his blades, "Well, I'm sorry we can't all be drunken suicidal runaways like you, Harv."

"Oh, ho ho!" Harvin sounded more amused than offended, "And just what are you referring to?"

"Your wife, Harv. And the baby," Mark paused for a moment to let it sink into the rotten dog's skull, but Harvin seemed unphased.

"And?" was his only reply.

"You ran away, Harv. The moment you found out she was pregnant you ran away to the Survey Corps because you were too much of a coward to take care of your own son."

Harvin laughed. He genuinely laughed. "Got family in Shiganshina that's heard of me, have you?"

Mark just glared at him, "Yeah, I do."

Harvin spent another moment or two laughing before he finally spread his arms out as if he were presenting himself, "Well do I _really_ look like the father type to you?"

Mark scoffed again and muttered something harsh under his breath.

They spent a minute or two on that tree limb- Mark thinking angry things involving a blade and a human ass and Harvin looking down at the titan with a sickened look on his face. When the silence finally broke it surprised Mark.

"So why did _you_ run away?"

Mark took a step back and levelled his eyes at Harvin. "Excuse me?"

"You said you'd moved out into the plains sometime before joining the military, right?"

"Yeah," Mark started, "To farm so I could _support_ my family."

"So you know how much a wife and kid is worth to someone, right?"

"Yeah."

"So you know how much a guy will miss them when he's away watching people get eaten."

Mark took a step forward, "Just what in the hell are you trying to-"

"So why didn't you save him?"

Mark stopped, "What?"

"Jason," Harvin gestured toward the titan below them that was now wandering around for more to eat. "Why didn't you save him?"

"What the hell is that supposed to even mean?"

"It's a simple question, Mark."

"I-" Mark shook his head, genuinely astounded by shallow Harvin was. "He had a damn _hole_ in his chest, you asshole. What in the hell was I supposed to do about it?" he said with a dismissive wave of his arm.

Harvin smiled and turned away from Mark for a moment. Mark stood there waiting for an answer. "I'm not talking about down there, Mark. I'm talking about before, when everything went to hell and people were getting snatched left and right." Then Harvin turned to face him in full again. "Why didn't you save him?"

Mark genuinely looked confused this time. "What in the world are you talking abou-"

"You know, I used to think you were the real role model what with how you always put your ass out there with the rookies, the weaklings, and the cowards; how you always tried to talk them out of their fear, encourage them, help them face up to their next mission. But I got to talking to some of my buddies back at the barracks one day and do you realize that aside from Levi's Elite Squad itself you have virtually the highest survival rating of almost all the Survey Corps?"

Mark just stood there, his eyes darting between Harvin and the space deep out into the forest.

Harvin continued, "Literally, you have somehow managed to survive more missions for more time than almost every other soldier. When we crunch the numbers, your mission survival to mission task ratio is higher than even some of the hardened veteran members. But yet for some odd reason, just about every rookie and family man you pair with ends up in a titan's mouth at some point or another." Harvin paused for a moment with his fists on hips, his eyes never leaving Mark. "You care to explain that?"

Mark looked painfully over at the bloody spot of ground were Jason had been as a tear or two came to his eyes. He thought of his wife, his son, and his daughter. His uncle, his aunt, his mom and his dad… _"I promised… to her… to them…" _Jason had said. _"We all make that promise…"_ had been Mark's reply. He shook his head at himself and tried to wipe the tears away with his sleeve.

Harvin spent a moment observing him, "Was it because of that little house back at the plains? That little beauty in the kitchen and the two little tots you had spent so much time raising?"

Mark glared at Harvin.

"I mean, I guess that's as good a reason as any. It's something we all say. 'I promised them, I can't let them down, they need me.'"

"Shut up, Harv," Mark declared through gritted teeth.

Harvin either didn't hear him or didn't care, "But did you ever stop to think that maybe _they_ had made the same promises? Did you ever think that maybe _their _families were just as precious to them?"

"I said, shut up."

"How many bodies, Mark? How many people had to give up on seeing _their_ families or _their_ kids ever again?"

Mark was starting to sob, "Stop it."

"How many times, Mark? Did you have to hold any of them the way you had to hold Jason? How many of them did you have to feed false hope?"

"_I saw him get grabbed… saw how he screamed at it for another chance, how he leaned away from those red stained teeth…"_ he had said, _"I couldn't save him…"_

"Harvin," he trembled, "Stop it."

"And what about, Sarah, huh? You know she was going to be married in two weeks? You know she had been talking about baby names with her fiancé? That they wanted to have kids after they got married?"

Mark dropped his blades. "Harvin," he choked, "_Please…_"

"Yeah, I saw you out there today! Sarah, screaming for help, caught in a titan's hand, struggled as best she could. And all Jason could do was tremble and watch, but you know who else was watching? Who else let Sarah and all her family plans slide down that titan's throat?"

"I said stop it!" he had sunk to his knees.

"You, Mark! You! On a tree directly across the forest floor from Jason, you sat there and just waited. You just _watched_!"

"Stop! Please!"

"And you know why?"

"Stop it!" his tears flowed freely down his cheeks and onto the tree limb.

"Because there was another titan-"

"No."

"- right beside the one eating Sarah-"

"_No!"_

"- STARING at you, Mark! Just waiting for you to try something! And you thought that if you had tried to save her-"

"NO!"

"- it would've snatched you right up. So you waited, and while you waited Jason managed to muster up his balls and swoop in to try to save her."

"Stop iiiiit!"

"And when he did the titan that had been so anxiously waiting on you grabbed him instead. And only then did you finally-"

"I LET HIM DIE!" the words erupted from Mark's mouth as he shook, his face against the tree limb and his arms over his head. "I… I let him… die…"

Harvin stood with his arms crossed as he leaned against the tree trunk and let Mark shout out in bitter wailing. After a few minutes Harvin finally added in truthfully, "And I had been on my way to kill those two titans too." He rapped a knuckle on his left gas tank. "Just wasn't quite fast enough… But you sure took care of them once they were distracted, didn't you?" Mark simply sat there, wailing. "Yup, I didn't see it until now, but that's why you always paired with the rookies. Because you knew that all they would be able to do is sit there, and that would distract the titan long enough to let you safely swing around and nip at the nape."

Mark's only response was more crying. He had heard Harvin, had heard every bit of it, and every bit of it was true. He had deliberately waited until the titan grabbed Sarah, and then deliberately waited until the one right behind it grabbed Jason. Even with Matthew… _"Saw how he leaned away from those red-stained teeth… I couldn't save him…"_ Mark had waited until it grabbed him. Of course, he hadn't told Jason that…

It was something he did every mission. Let someone else go first. Sometimes he actually managed to save them; other times he didn't. But even if he had managed to save them every single time it still wouldn't excuse what he did. He knew that.

After several minutes of crying, Mark managed to force out a few words. "I… It was just… I can't _not_ come back… I promised her… I promised them."

"Yeah, and so did Sarah and Jason and the commander. Everyone makes that promise. Hell, even I did at one point, if you could believe it."

Mark felt sick. His stomach churned and his face burned and his veins felt as if they would pulse right out of his skin.

Harvin spoke calmly, "You know, I'll admit. I ran away from my wife and my kid. I didn't want that kid, and to be honest, I didn't even want my wife anymore. Hell, even some of the bruises she got weren't from the garden or the factory." He walked over and crouched beside Mark, "But I admitted it. I was an awful person, and I did her and that child the decency of getting out of there. And I'll admit, I spend a lot more nights and money on being drunk than I probably should. But you know what?" He patted the still bitter Mark on the shoulder before he continued, "At least I know what kinda man I am." Harvin paused, "But what about you, Mark? Do you know what kinda man you are?"

Mark's eyes teared up again at that, and he began taking it out on the tree, slamming his fist into the bark again and again. Harvin stood up and walked back over to the tree's trunk and leaned against it as he pulled out his flask. He looked calmly out toward the distance as he waited for Mark to dry himself up. Then a quick _whoosh_ shot out in the distance, and Harvin could faintly see green smoke through the forest foliage. He put the flask away and walked over to Mark, grabbing him by the arm. "Well, come on ya bastard, it's time to regroup."

Mark let the dog pull him to his feet as he wiped his face with his free arm. There were no words or thoughts he had to offer- not even to himself. He simply hopped off the tree limb after Harvin and followed his easy swings through the forest. Mark followed Harvin like this for a while before the thoughts came creeping back. _What kinda man are you?_ His wife regularly told him he was a good man, told him she was proud of his service in the military, but what kind of a man let others die in his stead? How would she react if she knew just how he managed to survive this long?

Harvin landed easy on a fairly low branch and took a few minutes to sip from his flask. Mark stopped to rest on a medium branch on a tree behind Harvin several yards higher. Mark rested his head against the tree bark as the question repeated itself over and over in his head. All the men and women he had let die started flood back to his mind. All their screams, their frantic struggling, their cries for help. Some of them had even turned and met eyes with him just before they disappeared behind that gnarled set of teeth. Others died in his arms just the same as Jason did, believing he had tried his hardest to see everyone's safety through. _But it was never about everyone…_ That fact rang through his head until he thought his skull would burst.

Harvin turned around to face Mark. "You know, I've been thinking about something-" The rest of Harvin's words drained away until all Mark heard was the pulse in his head. He had waited. He had always waited until the titan had grabbed someone else first… Mark lifted his gaze up to look at Harvin, and that was when he saw the big round eye peering around the tree at them. It looked first at Harvin, then at Mark, then Harvin again, and when it returned to Mark he saw the thing spread a big grin of even teeth as if it were saying "thanks." Mark merely closed his eyes. He had always waited. Just like now.

Harvin suddenly interrupted himself. "Hey what in the- The fuck did you come-?! Mark! Hey _Maaaaark_! Get your filthy hand off me you stupid-"

Mark heard the struggling, heard a stab or two, and even an deep roar of pain, but it wasn't long before he heard the familiar sickeningly wet hollow _schnop _ of Harvin's spine snapping as the titan bit into him. Then did Mark shoot a hook into the next tree and swing around, blades at the ready. _Just what kind of man are you?_ He yelled a fierce cry as he sped around and sank both of his blades deep into the titan's flesh, feeling somewhat justified as the muscle lost its tension and ripped beneath him. He twisted the blades and viciously ripped out the nape as if it might've held the answer to his question. But of course, it didn't. So moments later he was off again to regroup with the others, even farther away from the answer to his question as he had been all that time ago when he had first clenched his fist over his heart and sworn to protect humanity. _Just what kind of man…_


End file.
